Kasumi Ninja is just one more reason why having 64-bits and a gazillion colors means diddly when it comes to game quality. But Jaguar owners shouldn't despair over this temporary setback: DOOM, Tempest 2000, Iron Soldier and Alien Vs. Predator still kick major butt, and the chances are good that more great Jag games are on the way.

This is a bloody game, and the designers seem to think it would be cool for the blood to stay on the ground where it's splattered, rather than disappear after a few second. Other than that, you've seen it all before, and done better.

Some of the backgrounds look pretty good, and yes, there's a lot of blood and plenty of female flesh, but if I wanted gore and scenery, I could watch a National Geographic special on the jungle. I don't get my jollies from video-game characters. Innovation was what I was hoping for, and Atari just marched out all the old conventions. Nice try, but no cigar. Scratch that - it wasn't even a nice of a try.

During the mid-Nineties, Midway developed a little game named Mortal Kombat, that would redefine the arcade industry with its high-grossing profits, offend millions of parents with its extreme amounts of gore and decapitation, and spawn a bunch of really bad clones. This is one of them.

The major trouble that I have goes back to how well this game compares to the original arcade version of Mortal Kombat. Neither game is particularly fast, fluid, loaded with fighters, filled with moves, or has even heard of a combo system. Both games have easily-exploitable special moves (namely, projectiles) and AI opponents ready and willing to cheat you. Both games have nary an enemy that can't be defeated by jump kicks. This was fine enough for MK when it was fresh and mildly revolutionary. Kasumi Ninja doesn't lose points for not being Mortal Kombat. But the original Mortal Kombat wasn't a great fighter itself, and Kasumi pulling the same racket years later, regardless of how close it looks to arcade hardware, isn't overly special.

Seriously, this game seems like a sick joke someone threw together in a weekend to tick off an ex-girlfriend or something. Unfortunately, that's not the case, especially considering the amount of time it must have taken to digitize these poor folk into the game. It's all a real shame too since the Jaguar probably could have pulled off a decent rendition of "Mortal Kombat." Instead, we got this. Joy.

The special attacks are also difficult to pull off (where's a Jaguar joystick when you need one?), so what you wind up with is a fighting game that requires button mashing and zero strategy. In the end, it's a generic fighter that that fails miserably in design execution.

Each fighter is introduced by a guy with a laughably fake Asian accent, and sound effects during fights are sometimes out of sync. The music is an odd mishmash of styles, but most of it sounds like some guy goofing off on a Casio keyboard. Kasumi Ninja is a sub-par fighter, even for the Jaguar. This game caused my smart-assed friend Scott to quip, "I never thought I'd ever utter these words, but can we play Ultra Vortek?"

Seriously, the closest thing to technique available is the old two-in-one jump kick to sweep - except the sweep only connects when the enemy AI acts really foolish! If you still feel compelled to own a Jaguar fighter for nostalgia's sake, Kasumi Ninja is certainly the lesser of the three fighting game evils. Just don't say we didn't warn you.

Why would you even consider buying a game like Kasumi Ninja? Is it because of the amazing character designs and the photo realistic graphics? Heck no, the characters here are among the lamest of any characters ever in a fighting game (outdoing even War Gods). How lame are the characters? Well, there's a guy in a kilt. That's usually not a good sign for a fighting game.